Ken Rousselle, the recently appointed president of Mississauga, Ont.-based Daystar Financial Group Inc., says he wants to bring greater integration to the managing general agency’s national network of branches and independent insurance advisors.

He also wants to bolster education and support for those advisors, partly by getting them together in central locations for additional training. Says Rousselle: “We want to open up some new ideas on education and mentoring that the insurance advisor can utilize.”

To that end, Daystar is launching a pilot project in Toronto that will create an office where advisors share information, network with professionals and join study groups related to their markets. The aim is to support advisors who work in independent settings.

A certified management accountant by training, Rousselle started out in the insurance business three decades ago before shifting to money management. About his arrival at Daystar, he says: “It’s great to be back where I started.”

Rousselle, formerly president and CEO of Calgary-based Professional Investment Services (Canada) Inc., had decided to take a break in 2009 after PIS’s Australian parent withdrew from the Canadian marketplace and sold its Canadian operations to Richmond Hill, Ont.-based Global Maxfin Investments Inc. Rousselle had spent four years leading about 120 independent advisors at PIS.

Rousselle’s move to Daystar came about through existing relationships. Last April, he was approached by René Pereux and Keith Brown, co-founders and co-CEOs of Daystar. “When I look back at why I came to Daystar,” says Rousselle, “there wasn’t just one thing that stood out; there were many things. But a big part of it had to do with René and Keith. I have known them for over 10 years, and trust them completely.”

Rousselle quickly embarked on a cross-country tour, meeting his management team of 15 executives, as well as Daystar’s support staff. In addition, Rousselle met with a number of the company’s top-rated advisors, many of whom he had known from his earlier days in the insurance world. Daystar currently serves 1,500 insurance advisors across Canada and has offices in Toronto, Winnipeg, Calgary and Vancouver.

“I gave them a chance to tell me what they felt was going on with the company,” Rousselle says. “I wanted to get a sense of what they felt the culture was, what they felt was good about the company and what they would like to change about the company.”

Rousselle stays in close contact with both co-CEOs, meeting with them weekly. The firm has been run by Pereux and Brown since it was founded in 2002, and both co-CEOs remain producing advisors. But as they want to spend more time in their advisory roles, Rousselle was asked to run the MGA in a way that’s consistent with its existing management style. The three executives share decision-making, with Rousselle providing the day-to-day management.



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“I think, for the most part, we have been successful in that,” says Rousselle. “We have built up the credibility that says, ‘I do my diligence.’ And both [Pereux and Brown] are like mentors to me. We talk about different issues and how we want to handle them. They provide that kind of support.”

That’s not to say Rousselle has no changes in mind. Almost seven months into his role, Rousselle has plans to improve Daystar, including moulding its structure into more of a boutique-style model with enhanced services and education for advisors. Rousselle would also like to incorporate the “centres of influence” model that was a key focus of PIS advisors. Under that model, advisors work closely with individuals from other associated but non-competing professions, such as accounting and law, in order to extend their client network and generate referrals.

Rousselle says one of the biggest challenges at Daystar has been taking over for two co-owners who had been so heavily involved. An integral part of that challenge has been to meld a group of relatively independent business centres — Daystar’s branch network — into a more integrated organization. “I don’t think we were doing enough collaboratively across the country to work together to build a stronger MGA,” says Rousselle. “The branches think differently, do things differently. To build a single type of brand and advisor experience, you need to think the same [but] with regional variance.”

Over the next six months to a year, Rousselle will be reviewing Daystar’s advisor network to assess which advisors are processing a significant chunk of their clients through Daystar. In an industry in which advisors can have relationships with several MGAs, Rousselle wants to focus on those advisors who are doing a relatively large percentage of their business through Daystar. Currently, the firm has 163 advi-sors who do much of their business with Daystar, and Rousselle would like to build that number over time.

“We want to be able to spend more time with each advisor and build up stronger relationships with them, which in turn will equal greater referrals with like-minded advisors,” says Rousselle. “But it is a process that is going to take a bit of time because we aren’t just going to terminate a bunch of advisors — that is not the way we want to do it. We want to see if we can re-establish some of those relationships that may have gone sideways for whatever reason. We know we have a big job ahead of us.”

Rousselle’s career stretches back to his first job in the accounting department of a life insurance firm. He then joined Halifax Insurance Life Co. in Toronto in product development. In 1993, he moved to Allstate Insurance Co. of Canada of Markham, Ont., then shifted over to Toronto-based Sun life Financial Inc. in 1997 to manage its brokerage distribution business.

Rousselle moved into the dealer world when he joined Sun Life’s mutual fund distribution arm, IQON Financial Management Inc., of which he became president and CEO. In 2006, Rousselle joined PIS, bringing its boutique model to Canada with the purchase of Calgary-based Generation Financial Corp.

Away from the office, Rousselle loves to travel with his wife Jacquelyn, and their children. At home, he enjoys playing hockey and walking his two dogs. IE